Some awesome feedback on last night’s Location Independence event

We want Esc events to be amazing.

So when you leave an event feeling like it wasn’t amazing, it’s important that we figure out why, and how to change that going forwards. If anyone else was dissatisfied with last night, please email me about how Esc can make it up to you with a free ticket for upcoming similar events.

Today we got an incredibly helpful email from Simon…

He attended last night. He shared the below, which we wanted to share with those who attended last night (so that you know we’re listening!) This is the first email we’ve ever gotten with someone who wasn’t happy with one of our events, so we really wanted to pay attention.

As we transition into running more events, it’s important that you know how crucial your feedback is to us – whether that’s by responding to the surveys or emailing me directly (adele@escapethecity.org).

As I said last night, our door at Esc is always open – we really do love hearing whatever you have to say about what we’re developing.

I attended last night’s Location Independence event at Adam street. I left disappointed, so thought i would feedback.

Lea had “6 key points” that she mentioned briefly… These were the nuggets of really valuable insight that were almost glossed over!

I suspect a lot of the people who attended enjoyed the organic “genius bar” type approach, but for me it was really disappointing. I don’t mean to criticise your speaker directly, because she is obviously well respected and has a huge amount of valuable experience to share. I’m more critical of the fact that the ‘event’ basically boiled down to one big anecdote and she was left to carry the whole thing.

I thought there would be more value in sharing my feedback, rather than just stewing on it. I really respect what esc is trying to do, and refer many many of my contacts to your site for inspiration. It’s a fantastic model, which is why i have bothered to feedback.

What we got from Simon’s email

We have to start treating these ‘class’ or workshop events differently to how we’ve run events in the past. Lea’s event was the second ‘class’-like event we’ve run – you would’ve seen that we released a bunch of summer events to test various assumptions about what kind of events are most helpful for you.

In the past, ‘events’ have been meetups or Escape Wednesdays – fairly casual, informal events – they’re social, anecdotal, and we’ll keep these going forwards, but in a separate stream. When we have specific classes or workshops, we’ll keep them much more class-like, since that seems to be the tone that members are after.

For the next event we run (which is the food event) – we’re making sure that we structure the learnings in a much clearer way. Those of you attending will soon receive a survey asking you for specific questions and topics that you’d like the speakers to cover.

We’re using Simon’s suggested bullet points below, as input, as we design upcoming events at the Hub Westminster (details soon to be announced – watch the newsletter for more details…)

A well structured “event” would hang itself around points like these (or similar) and move through them in a really clear and well thought-out way using them as a sort of frame for the discussion:

Building your personal brand (Arguably the single most important factor and wasn’t really touched on!)

How can you assure yourself that you will be able to ‘take business with you’

What resources are available that will influence/guide me in establishing my online presence

Working out your value

Up-skilling

How you think about transferable skills that work in the remote marketplace?

Share with me what skills you take to market specifically, and which you derive your revenue from?

Give me some examples of the types of resources (like GA) that are out there to up-skill?

Have an escape fund

What should your ‘fund’ cover? Some ideas…

What kind of sacrifices can you expect to make becoming location independent?

Surround yourself with like minded people

How?

Whats the difference between ‘being on fb/twit’ and “using fb/twit”

Using the idea of ‘base camp’ and ‘outposts’ in practice

Thanks again Simon – for the email and also for taking the time to chat on the phone earlier today.